Reviews
Here you will find a selection of reviews from several of Eaton's performances over the years.
You can scroll down to read them all or jump straight to a specific one by using the links below:
- Paradise Moscow - The Times Online, Review
- Paradise Moscow - The Stage, Review
- Paradise Moscow - The Financial Times, Review
- Cinderella - Chad.co.uk, Review
- Never Forget - What's On Stage, Review
- Miss Saigon - The British Theatre Guide, Review
Paradise Moscow - The Times Online, Review
Date: 20th August 2009Reviewer: Emma Pomfrett
Venue: Bregenz Festival, Austria
Source: The Times Online.
If some of Opera North’s own subscribers fretted over the company’s recent run of light operetta, the Bregenz Festival’s glitzy audience (sequins de rigueur for the 11am shows) has no such hang-ups. Paradise Moscow by Shostakovich, Gershwin’s Of Thee I Sing (merrily translated as Fur Dich Baby) and David Sawer’s Skin Deep – Austrian audiences lapped them up.
David Sawer and Armando Iannucci’s satire on plastic surgery, Skin Deep, is the most intriguing of the three. At its premiere back in January, this new commission was a sagging customer, in need of a judicious nip and tuck. Well, it’s had that – around 20 minutes of music has gone – but it remains baggy, and despite the performers’ spirited efforts, needs a humour booster.
The premise has promise: we’re in the Swiss clinic of Dr Needlemeier, whose motto is, “Putting right what Nature got wrong.” Besides tweaking his own wife, Lania (face now so tight she can’t blow out the candles on her birthday cake), and perfecting receptionist and lover, Donna, Dr Needlemeier is working on an elixir of youth that will bring him fame and fortune. For that, however, he needs an elusive ingredient: the testicle of Hollywood star, Luke Pollock (geddit?).
Sawer says he wanted to write a vaudeville sequence of numbers but his music delivers few gags, instead creating an unnerving, sinister mood. While Needlemeier (an excellent Geoffrey Dolton) sings, “Your face puts me off, so your face must come off,” to Donna, the woodwind cranks out uncertainty, not a punchline. Under director Richard Jones, Skin Deep lurches unsettlingly from slapstick to sinister.
The performers do their best. Janis Kelly as Lania and Heather Shipp as Donna are powerful sparring partners, singing some of Sawer’s most energetic rhythms with dramatic precision. Andrew Tortise as Robert (transformed from lump to hunk) delivers a beautiful pining aria for his girlfriend. As Luke Pollock, Mark Stone shows a gift for comedy and bags the biggest laugh when finally reunited with his missing “golden globe”. And hats off to Opera North’s chorus for nailing the fiendish rhythms, wordplay, and gamely donning nude body suits with, er, bits.
And so to political satire… Paradise Moscow packs a bigger punch than Gershwin’s presidential election caper Of Thee I Sing; less dialogue, more tunes, more pace. Based on Shostakovich’s 1958 operetta Cheryomushki, the satire bites harder still for an audience who’ve lived through Mittel-European communist history. Cheryomushki is the promised land of sparkling Soviet reconstruction. Municipal happiness! Ventilated flats! A flushing toilet! All yours… if you can wrestle the keys from the authorities.
Conductor Wyn Davies leads the Opera North orchestra through Shostakovich’s tuneful score with energy and great musical detail. West End regulars Summer Strallen as Lidochka and Eaton James as teddy-boy Boris inject some pizzazz. Director David Pountney draws broad characters, Richard Suart’s sleazy foreman, Barabashkin, stealing the show as he shoots back vodka and staggers to the toilet. That got a big guffaw from the Austrians. If the piece takes a crazy turn in Act II, the chorus makes this a show worth seeing.
The hottest ticket, however, is Aida. From Lego Egyptians in shop windows to festival director David Pountney’s golden-starred shoes, Bregenz is in thrall to Verdi’s slave heroine. And no wonder; director Graham Vick and designer Paul Brown have delivered a spectacular. Two enormous feet, zingy blue with golden stars, bestride Bregenz’s famous floating stage, while the shattered face of the Statue of Liberty, 30 metres high, peers down on the action. With hooded slaves and Ethiopian prisoners in orange overalls, the American allusions aren’t hard to spot; everyone’s a loser in war. But at heart, this show is all about entertainment: a towering golden elephant; submerged singers and dancers; water fights; and – taking a monumental liberty with Verdi’s story – Vick’s doomed lovers, Aida and Radames, meet their death in a boat hoisted 50 metres into the night sky.
At times the spectacle verges on hilarity: Radames speeds to war across Lake Constance in a jet boat, like some wind-up bath toy. The King of Egypt, dressed in a gleaming Tutankhamen-esque headdress, and mic-ed up like all the singers, sounds like Darth Vader from Star Wars. But Vick conjures moments of intimacy from the madness, notably the heartfelt Act III three-hander between Aida, her father, Amonasro, and lover Radames.
American soprano Mardi Byers is a last-minute Aida; the original and star both came a cropper to colds and the treacherous set. Byers does a decent enough job, though she’s at her best opposite Vittorio Vitelli, compelling as Amonasro. American tenor Philip Webb, as Radames, thrills the crowd with his Verdian power and passion, and, operatic arm-waving aside, Chinese mezzo Guang Yang gives every ounce of drama, vengeance and remorse as the spurned Egyptian princess, Amneris.
It must be rather galling for Carlo Rizzi, conducting the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and festival chorus from the next-door theatre. Beamed to the auditorium on big screens, his superb efforts might just as well have been a recording. What this 7,000-strong audience pays to see – and what they get – isn’t musical subtlety but grand spectacle.
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Paradise Moscow - The Stage, Review
Date: 20th April 2009Reviewer: Kevin Berry
Venue: Grand Theatre, Leeds
Source: The Stage.
A new high-rise apartment block is being built on the outskirts of Moscow in the fifties and everyone wants to live there. Comic chaos ensues in this full-blown, outrageously staged revival of the Shostakovich operetta Cheryomushki. One huge, full company number even has walk on parts for Lenin, Marx and Uncle Joe Stalin.
The fun keeps on coming - statues springing to sudden life, all of the neighbours tightly packed into one room, some crazy costumes and hilarious songs. You really have to admire a lyricist - David Pountney - who can rhyme ‘toilet’ with ‘spoilt it’ and keep that standard.
Summer Strallen makes her Opera North debut as Lidochka, a museum guide chased by subversive rocker Boris (Eaton James). She is a visual and performing treat, he has style and presence in abundance. Their duets are smashing, varying from a wild Elvis pastiche to a romantic ballad with each singing introspectively.
Having an ankle in a pot does not hinder Bibi Heal’s pert and knowing performance, as a wife who can only meet her husband during the day time because they do not have a room to call their own. Her injury is made part of the story.
Specialist dancers underpin the staging of songs and the Opera North chorus moves with studied effect. The company orchestra is brought in on the action, being addressed many times by the main characters. Top form and top fun from everyone. (Back to top)
Paradise Moscow - The Financial Times, Review
Date: 20th April 2009Reviewer: Andrew Clarke
Venue: Grand Theatre, Leeds
Source: The Financial Times.
Opera North is nearing the end of a season of operettas and will soon set sail with three of them for the Bregenz Festival. The last of these, Shostakovich’s Paradise Moscow (Moskva, Cheryomushki), rejoined the repertory at the weekend in a production first staged in 2001. The work is one of David Pountney’s special causes. He translated it, he directed it – and he runs Bregenz.
On the surface Paradise Moscow slips effortlessly into the cross-genre tradition of musical theatre that Opera North has long espoused. The company plays it with belief and panache – and with a degree of spectacle (sets and costumes by Robert Innes Hopkins) that is impressive by credit-crunch standards. Above all, the show highlights the cast’s versatility: most dance as well as they sing (some do the dancing even better), and you can’t miss the sense of operetta style that the season has inculcated.
But Shostakovich’s 1958 comedy is extremely flimsy. The score never develops beyond the composer’s jaunty ironic style, the songs have no heart, and the scenario – a skit on Soviet officialdom’s mishandling of Moscow’s housing problems – involves too many false endings. We can never be sure how much of what we are hearing is Shostakovich, and how much is the extensive doctoring carried out by Gerard McBurney, who created this “musical version” 15 years ago, and by Pountney, whose translation uses the F-word and other expletives.
The suspicion is that they have “helped” it to a degree that distorts the original – trading on the composer’s name to create a show that glosses over the jobbing nature of Shostakovich’s inspiration and makes it easy for western consumption. What it cannot hide is that, despite the easing of state censorship during the “Krushchev thaw”, Shostakovich’s nose had been too enduringly bruised by the 1936 Stalin attack to make possible a theatrical work of substance.
James Holmes and the orchestra keep the show moving in tune with the eye-catching choreography (Craig Revel Horwood, David Hulston), and the whiff of Broadway is strong whenever Eaton James’s Boris and Summer Strallen’s Lidochka are on stage. 4/5 Stars.
On tour until June 26, Opera North. (Back to top)
Cinderella - Chad.co.uk, Review
Date: 9th December 2008Reviewer: Karla Hall
Venue: The Royal Centre, Nottingham
Source: Chad.co.uk
Comedy king Brian Conley stole the show as Cinderella lived up to its bold billing as the best panto ever to grace the city of lace. A popular household name thanks to The Brian Conley show and rib-ticking characters Dangerous Brian and Nick 'It's a Puppet' Frisby, the quirky comic had the audience — and indeed, his co-stars — crying with laughter throughout as the loveable Buttons.
Ably backing him up were the Ugly Sisters, Trinny and Susannah — better known as dynamic duo Nigel Ellacott and Peter Robbins — whose eccentric take-off of the storybook siblings brought the stage to life, with their crazy costumes, sizzling smut and raw, uncensored wit. Seasoned panto pros, the gruesome twosome — who have appeared alongside Conley in Cinderella for the past five seasons — looked alarmingly comfortable in their dazzling dame attires, which included everything from a picnic basket to a bottom-bearing deckchair!
Also lighting up the auditorium with his wicked one-liners was Dawson Chance as Cinders' father, Baron Hardup, who showed off his ventriloquistic skills through his furry friend 'Little Willy' (ahem, ahem) — a sleepy turtle whose cheeky back-chat really brought the kids out of their shells.
The fairytale's main character Cinderella, played by the stunning TV star Michelle Potter, graced the stage with her angelic voice and glowing persona, whilst The Prince, Dean Chisnall, had female pulses-a-racing with his tight tights, lush locks . . . and striking resemblance to Enchanted heart-throb Patrick Dempsey. Oh yeah, and he could sing and act, too!
With his loyal servant Dandini — the lively, likeable Eaton James — at his side, the charismatic companions wooed the masses, whilst Fairy Denise Pitter had her audience spellbound with a hip mix of magic, modern music and good, old-fashioned glitter.
All in all, immaculate, colourful costumes, superb scenery, up-to-the-minute choreography and a first-rate support cast — which included the multi-talented Theatre Royal Babes — ensured Cinderella had my family and I in raptures, awe . . . and stitches! Hilarious, enchanting and downright delightful, the hours passed like minutes — and when we shouted for an encore, we really meant it, as the irresistible show exceeded its billing in every possible way.
Pantomime in a league of its own, the starring role undoubtedly belonged to Conley, who demonstrated his versatility as a comedian, actor and singer, enjoying a riotous rapport with the audience and a clear chemistry with his co-cast. To sum it up in a word — unmissable. So grab your pumpkin, get on your glad rags and see Cinderella . . . you'll have a ball! (Back to top)
Never Forget - What's On Stage, Review
Venue: The Savoy TheatreDate Reviewed: 23 May 2008
Reviewer: Michael Coveney
WOS Rating: ****
Source: What's On Stage
It may not have as much class, or indeed glass, as the design of Marguerite, but the latest jukebox show Never Forget has infinitely more energy and pizzazz and much better songs. I’m not a big Take That fan particularly as I’ve recently grown out of my prepubescent schoolgirl period, and as far as I’m concerned their best numbers – “Could It Be Magic” and “How Deep Is Your Love” – were so-so cover versions of Barry Manilow and the Bee Gees anyway.
This irresistible show does, however, make a good case for the talents of the writer/lyricist Gary Barlow by creating a decent dramatic structure – in a script by Danny Brocklehurst, Guy Jones and director Ed Curtis - that may not have the wit or ingenuity of Mamma Mia! but does use the concert format, and some stunning stage effects, to tell a good story.
The premise is the creation of a Take That tribute band – a sort of “Fake That” - by a bullish Mancunian manager, Ron Freeman (Teddy Kempner), who then tempts the Gary Barlow figure, Ash Sherwood (Dean Chisnall), away from the group into a solo career.
This echo of the departure of Robbie Williams in 1995 when the real-life group had been going five years is cunningly worked towards a happy ending, with a reunion of the band and of Ash with his long-suffering girlfriend Chloe (Sophia Ragavelas), after he has succumbed to a hellfire clubland scene and a sexpot music agent (Joanne Farrell).
All the boys have a drive to succeed: Ash, aided by his best mate Jake (Craige Els is indecently tall but suitably clownish in the Robbie role), wants to clear the debts in the family pub; Tim Driesen’s Adrian Banks is a bespectacled loner with an inner demon and a hidden six-pack; while Eaton James’ Dirty Harry and Stephane Anelli’s campy Hispanic Jose both need to escape, the first from the male stripping circuit, the second from his dominating mother.
Curtis’ production arrives at the Savoy with a brash confidence and unassailable technical perfection born of a long nationwide tour. Karen Bruce’s choreography pulsates with dance floor discipline, and Bob Bailey’s design and James Whiteside’s lighting create a superb concert atmosphere with a stage-wide wall of fire and an incredible first act finale curtain of rain – as in the “Never Forget” video – with the show’s title picked out in giant letters. How did they do that?
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Miss Saigon - The British Theatre Guide, Review
Date: 2005Reviewer: Peter Lathan
Source: The British Theatre Guide
It is eight years or so since I saw Miss Saigon at Drury Lane and, although I remember thoroughly enjoying it (as did two friends for whom this was their first introduction to stage musicals), I had forgotten just how powerful it is. Of course the combination of a moving and evocative opera like Madama Butterfly and its original inspiration, the French novel Madame Chrysantheme, which are both cited as sources of Miss Saigon by Boublil and Schönberg, and the tragic mythos that has grown around the Vietnam War, is a potent mixture, but it is the music which gives the piece its real power.
And what music! From the sex-laden coarseness of The Heat Is On In Saigon, through the yearning The Movie In My Mind, the joyful Sun and Moon, the poignant Last Night of the World and the thrilling but very scary The Morning of the Dragon, which is followed immediately by the heart-rending I Still Believe, to the almost unbearable Bui Doi and the whole mixture of conflicting emotions which make up the second half of the show, culminating in the satirical The American Dream (with brilliant animations by Gerald Scarfe), which leads finally to Kim's Little God of My Heart, it manipulates the audience's emotions unerringly.
This is a far cry from Andrew Lloyd Webber - even from Superstar, which I still believe is his best work - and even from Boublil and Schönberg's Les Misérables, which, perhaps because of its epic scope, does not have the same deep emotional impact, powerful though it undoubtedly is. Indeed, I would suggest that Miss Saigon, along with West Side Story, is probably the closest that the musical comes to tragedy in the true sense of the word.
This performance was the press night of the first stop on a long tour and you would expect the company to pull out all the stops, and so they did, and the impression was of a show with which they are all comfortable, as if they had played it many time before. We had an understudy - Eaton James playing Chris, instead of Steven Houghton - but this didn't matter a jot. He captured the slight gaucheness of the younger Chris with his almost Romeo-like exuberance when he falls in love with Kim and the agony on discovering that, not only was Kim sill alive three years later but had his son.
As for Kim, the performance by Miriam Valmores-Marasigan was exemplary. It is, of course, a gift of a part but it would be so easy to play the poor down-trodden little girl card, a trap which Ms Valmores-Marasigan skillfully avoids: her Kim has steel within. And she sings beautifully.
As the Engineer, Jon Jon Briones (likeValmores-Marasigan) has played the part numerous times and it shows. He is in total control, and manipulates the audience with ease so that, after initially hating him for his exploitation of the girls in the first scene, they come to love him. Hugh Maynard's John, Sebastian Tan's Thuy and Kerry Ellis' Ellen are totally believable, and there was no weakness anywhere in the whole ensemble.
The staging is complex, a combination of huge trucks, flown signs (and a large bas-relief of Ho Chi Minh), and film. The famous helicopter of the original production is replaced by film but, with the almost painfullly loud sound, is almost equally effective. Possibly more so, in fact, for the "real" helicopter tended to jerk us out of the illusion and say, "My God, that's a brilliant effect!"
You don't come out humming any of the tunes (nor whistling the scenery!), for Miss Saigon works because all of the elements combine in equal proportions. Schönberg doesn't work a tune to death, although significant phrases are revived when emotionally necessary and reprises (not many at all) are there because the drama needs them to be.
In any terms, it's a powerful piece of theatre, and the fact that yesterday, in his inauguration speech, George W Bush said he intends to bring the "untamed fire of freedom to the darkest corners of the world", gives it a resonance which brings shivers down the spine. (Back to top)
